The FINANCIAL — LinkFord and MOG announced Ford drivers can now enjoy MOG’s award-winning, on-demand music service at their request using SYNC AppLink and the power of their voice

SYNC AppLink gives music lovers access to MOG’s vast catalog of more than 15 million songs in the car. Ford drivers simply need to launch the MOG app on their

USB-connected iPhone and MOG will immediately become an available option. Once selected, the listener’s MOG play queue will instantly begin playing so users can pick up listening wherever they left off.

According to Ford Motor Company, MOG can be controlled with voice commands and in-dash controls, allowing drivers to easily personalize their listening experience in a range of 2012 model Ford Motor Company vehicles. Ford drivers will have immediate access to their fav

orite songs and downloads via the AppLink interface along with access to custom radio channels that can be easily “tuned” by using the traditional tune knob on the in-dash interface.

You may have heard about the EcoBoost six-cylinder engine Ford has been torture-testing in its F-150 pickup trucks. It towed 11,300 pounds at full throttle for 24 hours, dragged logs through the forest and even competed in the Baja 1000 desert race. It’s an impressive list of accomplishments.

But if you’re like me, you want to look inside the engine to see how it’s really holding up. How do the cylinder walls look? Do the rings still seal? Are the valves, bearings and journals like new or are they worn to a nub? Ford is giving motor heads a chance to find out, sort of.

No, you can’t take the engine home. But the car maker’s power train engineers will disassemble it in public during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 15 at 11 a.m. Ford says it subjected the turbocharged V6 engine to the equivalent of 160,000 miles and 10 years of rugged use to prove it can handle a work-truck’s duties.

“Customers will be able to see for themselves how the components fared during a regime of tests that, when taken together, are far more extreme than even the harshest-use customer could dish out,” said Jim Mazuchowski, Ford’s V6 engines programs manager. “This EcoBoost truck engine received no special treatment, and now we’re going to see how it did.”

If you are skeptical, or just curious, you may want to bring your calipers and ask to take a few measurements for yourself. To see a video of technicians removing the engine from the desert-racing test truck, click here.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the popularity of the F-150 SVT Raptor,” said Mark Grueber, F-150 marketing manager. “Orders have exceeded our expectations.”

And why is it so pleased? Because a Raptor costs $38,020, or about $16,000 more than the base F-150, which goes for $21,820. The model, and its popularity, are a throwback to Detroit’s golden age of high-profit truck-selling a decade ago. The profit margins are much healthier than those for cars. The truck’s gas mileage should conjure some nostalgia as well, 14 miles in the city and 18 on the highway.

“The truck is so popular that we actually wound up building more 5.4-liter V-8 models than we had originally anticipated. The order banks are now open for the all-new 6.2-liter V-8, and the orders keep rolling in,” Grueber adds.

Built alongside the best-selling F-150 at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant, the 2010 F-150 SVT Raptor was designed for the off-road performance market which has steadily grown in popularity over the past decade, Ford says.
Â
Raptor is powered by a 5.4-liter Triton V-8 engine, which delivers 320 horsepower. This spring, customers will have the added option of an all-new 6.2-liter V-8 engine, producing 411 horsepower. The orders are coming not just from off-road crazy Texas and the Southwest, but Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio and Georgia.

About half of the orders for the truck are for black, followed by orange, white and blue.

Contrary to the interest voiced in reinventing small pickups for the U.S. from Chrysler, Nissan and Scion, Ford is keeping plans to end production of the U.S.-built Ranger next year and offer only full-size F-Series pickups, though there’s still a chance the Ranger could be replaced in North America with Ford’s upcoming global midsize truck.

Last year, Ford sold 55,600 Rangers in the U.S. It was the second best-selling small truck behind the Toyota Tacoma, which sold 111,824 units.

“Today, a lot of customers who buy Rangers are the people who use it as a commuter vehicle,” Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s group vice president of product development, told PickupTrucks.com last week at the 2010 North American International Auto Show. “But with the new Ford Fiesta and Focus coming into the lineup, those kinds of customers will have other alternatives to the Ranger.”

Kuzak said another reason for eliminating the Ranger is Ford’s effort to improve the fuel economy of its F-Series pickups.

“We’re going to continue to make the F-Series significantly more fuel efficient while still providing the level of capability that the F-150 provides today,” Kuzak said. “There will be no compromise for better fuel efficiency. The vast majority of Ranger buyers are not using the full capability of the truck. We have to compare those customers choosing a very affordable and fuel-efficient F-150.”

A 2010 Ford Ranger with a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine and five-speed automatic transmission is rated at 19/24 mpg city/highway.

We expect much of the mileage improvements will come from new engines for the F-150, such as the new 3.5-liter V-6 EcoBoost that’s said to provide the power of a V-8 with the efficiency of a V-6, and a new 3.7-liter V-6 that our sources also tell us is set to go into the F-150. Our sources say a four-cylinder EcoBoost F-150 is also planned.

Still, Kuzak said it’s possible the U.S. might get a direct replacement for the Ranger.

“It’s no secret we have a new Ranger coming globally. We’re working on one for all the other markets in the world,” Kuzak said. “The difference is that all of those other markets only have a Ranger. They don’t have an F-150 above it.”

The new global Ranger, code-named T6, is being designed in Australia. The current U.S.-built and overseas Ford Ranger models share only their names.

Would the global Ranger work in the North American market?

“That’s what we’re still looking at,” Kuzak said. “We’re still trying to finalize that decision.”

The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 that’s due late this year in the 2011 Ford F-150 will have more torque than the new engine does in Ford cars.

“In the transverse installation in the car, the torque is somewhat limited by transaxle, driveline,” explained Dan Kapp, Ford’s director of powertrain research and advanced engineering, with the engine’s 350 pound-feet rating imposed electronically. “So that when we go into the truck we’ve got the truck transmissions and we can actually get more torque from it, basically using the same setup.” Kapp also said there’s a potential for a lower exhaust backpressure in the F-150, but the power outputs between the two won’t be all that different.

This past year, Ford has rolled out the first of a new generation of so-called EcoBoost engines. Designed to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, with performance to rival larger engines, the family pairs turbocharging and direct injection. In Ford’s car and crossover applications, including the Ford Flex, Lincoln MKS, and Ford Taurus SHO, the EcoBoost 3.5-liter V-6 makes 355 horsepower (365 in the SHO) and 355 pound-feet of torque.

For truck buyers who might be reluctant to think that a turbocharged gasoline engine could be good in the F-150 for serious truck tasks like towing and hauling, Kapp assured TheCarConnection.com that the EcoBoost will have all the towing capabilities of the existing V-8 lineup. The EcoBoost 3.5 will be offered as a premium engine upgrade over the 5.4-liter V-8, said Kapp, and targeting that premium-engine customer. “They’re the customer we have to satisfy, and they’re the towers,” he added.

Fuel economy should remain stellar. According to Ford, the 2011 EcoBoost F-150 will get a 20-percent improvement in fuel economy over the larger V-8.

DALLAS, Oct. 19, 2008 – The new 2009 F-150 has been recognized as the one and only “Truck of Texas” by the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) – the sixth consecutive year a Ford truck has won top honors.

Ford’s lineup of trucks also was named Truck Line of Texas, while the Ford Flex and Expedition King Ranch received top honors as CUV and SUV of Texas, respectively. Sweeping all four vehicle-centered top honors, Ford emerged the clear winner at this year’s TAWA Texas Truck Rodeo.

“This is high praise, especially the coveted ‘Truck of Texas’ top prize,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s President of the Americas. “Texas Auto Writers are the toughest truck critics because they know firsthand and truly appreciate how core truck customers really use their pickups.

“We’re honored that TAWA recognizes that the new F-150 offers consumers class-leading capability, unsurpassed fuel economy and durability that shows how closely we’ve been listening to our customers for the 31 years Ford trucks have been America’s favorite,” he added.

According to Harold Gunn, President of TAWA, this year’s competition was tighter than ever because all of the manufacturers are delivering outstanding trucks.

“‘Truck of Texas’ is really the most important award of its type in the industry,” said Gunn. “We love trucks down here, and we really use these vehicles everyday. And since we spend so much time in our vehicles, for us it’s not just about how the horse feels being towed, but how your butt feels sitting in the truck, too.”

On sale now, the new F-150 offers fuel economy that has improved an average of 8 percent across the entire lineup as a result of a wide-range of engineering enhancements. The fuel economy gains reach as high as 12 percent versus the prior model year on F-150 models equipped with the high-volume three-valve, 5.4-liter V-8 engine. At the same time, the new F-150 delivers class-leading towing capability of 11,300 pounds and hauling capacity of 3,030 pounds – a combination no other competitor can match.

“Earning the trust of so many truck customers during the past 31 years has taught us a lot about what they want and value from their F-150,” said Matt O’Leary, Ford F-150 chief engineer. “In the past, there was a tradeoff – more fuel economy meant less capability and vice versa. With the new F-150, we didn’t accept tradeoffs. We delivered capability and fuel economy, and that’s why the F-150 is the definitive full-size pickup on the market.”

Other Ford Motor Company vehicles winning top honors in their categories at the TAWA Rodeo include: